They Didnt Rock

“Overall, the only thing I'm disappointed about is that there were no disappointments.”- Carlyn Kautz

I really enjoyed the VMAs last night. Chris Rock’s monologue was great. It was good to see Jay-Z and P. Diddy and Prince. There were even some movie stars there too. Like Adam Sandler and Mike Myers. Santana’s performance was good. And Beyonce’s performances were, well, they were Beyonce performances. It was cool how the floor lit up and how the set was really busy with lots of TV screens and things moving around and shiny distractions. There was even a hilarous and highly original pre-taped bit where Chris Rock talked to regular people at a movie theater. All in all I went to bed afterwards thinking it was one of the best VMAs in years. And then I woke up this morning and started reading the news and it turns out that that wasn’t the VMAs at all! That was the Oscars. Who knew! Well I guess I have to amend the quote from Carlyn I used to open then. I do have one more disappointment: The whole show.

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The thing with the Oscars is that they are an awards show. They exist solely for the purpose of handing out awards. This is their only reason for being. Not to provide entertainment to the masses, but to present awards to deserving members of the film community. This is also why we watch them, because we enjoy seeing all of these people win their awards. We enjoy the whole thing: the reading of the names, the celebration when the winner is announced, the walk to the podium and the speech. Its not just about who wins, its about the whole process of winning. (I think you know where this is headed…) This year though, (stay calm Andy…) the producer of the telecast wanted it to move quicker, so he eliminated that pesky step of people having to walk very far to receive their awards. Now, as I just got done saying, the Academy Awards, as their name indicates, are an awards show. And if the show exists solely to hand out awards THEN WHY ARE THEY SHAVING TIME OFF THE PRESENTING OF THE AWARDS?!? That’s the whole reason we’re watching is because we want to see people win awards!!! Who cares if we don’t know any of the sound editors or costume designers who were nominated; they still deserve awards as much as the actors and writers and I would still like to watch them receive said awards with all the same fanfare as the people I AM familiar with! If I didn’t want to watch them win their awards then I WOULDN’T BE WATCHING AN AWARDS SHOW! I would be watching Desperate Fucking Housewives. This new change just completely baffles me. I mean they used to have the Oscars in a ballroom and Im sure the Academy was just fine with that. But then they realized other people might be interested in their awards so to be nice they allowed us to watch at home as audience members. And what do we do in return? (and by “we” I mean Gil Cates, the guy in charge of the telecast) We start choosing to treat over half the nominees like second class citizens and try to suggest to them that their awards don’t matter and we’d rather that they just be over quickly. As an true Oscar fan knows, its actually good there’s all the smaller awards in the show because if it was four straight hours of Best Actor-level awards it would be a little too overwhelming. The smaller awards create balance and allow the show to build to a climax. Which also brings up the point this year of: what was up with the awards order this year? Full Length Documentary was given out like an hour before Documentary Short Subject. Adapted Screenplay was presented in the first hour and then they didn’t do Original Screenplay until the very end. Plus most importantly, what was with Supporting Actress? I think since the beginning of recorded time it has always been the first award given out. But they did Art Direction before it this time. What was the point of making such a minor change for no apparent reason? (And yes the fact that this bothers me is a very strong sign I need to get a life…) Maybe they wanted to show off their new form of degradation for the technical nominees as soon as possible. I swear if they hand out awards in the audience again next year Gilbert Cates will be a dead man. I understand he wants the show to move faster and end sooner but this was too much. Besides, I don’t know of anyone who really likes the Oscars who wishes they were over sooner. Me personally, I wish they went on all day. Of course TV critics and casual fans bitch every year about how long and boring the show is, but what can anyone do about that? If you don’t like seeing people get awards THEN DON’T WATCH! I know the show wants to attract new viewers, but they can't be something they're not. No matter how they try to spice it up they are an awards show and Cleatus The Truck Driver is never going to watch a Hollywood awards show where people are dressed in gowns and tuxes. Plus, did they really think their changes would help? You think Cleatus was passing by a TV and thought, “Hey I used to hate these awards but now I see that they’ve cut out the part where the technical winners have to walk all the way to the stage! Now they get to accept their awards at a microphone right next to their seat in the middle of the audience! Wow, I wasn’t going to watch these awards but now that they’ve shaved 10 seconds off each of the technical winners receiving their awards I’ll watch and I’ll love it!” No matter what you try and do Cleatus will just never give a shit about Sideways and Million Dollar Baby. So why try? Focus on what you do well and don’t try to be everything to everyone. You would have thought the Academy Awards would have learned this in high school, but some entities just never learn I guess. That’s why the whole Chris Rock thing was so misguided. While I thought he was hilarious, could he have been any more out of place? They were trying to put Chris Rock in a situation he didn’t belong in. You don’t bring a profane edgy comic to run the oldest, most tradition bound awards show around. It would be like getting George Carlin to MC a debutant ball. George Carlin is maybe the greatest comic alive but he doesn’t belong around fancy hairdos and tuxedos. And neither does Chris Rock. If it wasn’t clear from his opening monologue that mentioned none of the nominees (and sounded just like he was doing his standup act only with situation appropriate names inserted into it) that Rock was a bad choice to host, then it became crystal clear during the Johnny Carson tribute. Watching it I kept thinking: is there any way that that no matter how many more times Chris Rock might host the show that I could see them giving him his own separate tribute the year he dies? And the answer is a resounding no. He’s just not an Oscar host. Extremely smart and funny? Yes. Oscar host? No. To be fair, I enjoyed the show on a pure entertainment level more this year than I have the past two years and some if it was a direct result of Rock’s involvement. But at what cost is that entertainment? Not a cost anyone should be willing to pay. You can make changes to the Oscars, like when they took out the dance numbers a few years back, but you can’t make it something its not. The Oscars are not, and never will be, the VMAs, nor should they be. But unfortunately it seems that Hollywood’s obsession with youth has now extended to their awards shows. But as Clint Eastwood showed, younger and hipper isn’t always better. Sometimes old, crotchety and wrinkled is better.
Or at least that what I tell your Mom…

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Since I’ve already shared plenty of my views on who should win in my last entry, and since everyone I predicted would win DID win, I don’t really have anything to say about the awards themselves without being repetitive. But I do still have a few other things to share:

RANDOM THOUGHTS
-For two years in a row now there have been no upsets in any of the major categories. Some people have complained about this but I fail to see how those complaints are valid. Usually the person who is picked to win is picked as such because that is whom the greatest number of people have said they are going to vote for and because that nominee has the most “buzz” around them. So if they are the person the greatest number of people seem to prefer as the winner, then how is them losing a good thing? It makes for good TV for the two minutes it is actually happening, but then for all eternity we’re stuck with something like Adrien Brody beating Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor. And I don’t see how something like that is worth two minutes of good TV.

-You know you’re in Hollywood when Peter Ustinov gets more applause than Ronald Reagan.

-Am I the only one who thinks it would be funny if you made a documentary about midgets and then submitted it as a nominee for Documentary Short Subject?

-Its been a fun ride Hilary Swank, we’ll see you again in 2020 when a screenwriter gets around to writing another butch, trashy, unattractive role for a lead actress.

-The less that is said about the Star Jones Preshow/Parade of Black People the better. I only wish Marlon Wayans had been there just so Star could have shoved Clint Eastwood aside to interview him. And also so that then Clint would have become so angry that he would kill Damon Wayans. And Star Jones. Now if he did THAT I would support giving him major awards…In short, who would have ever thought someone would make you long for the days of Joan Rivers? Or that a feeling of longing and Joan Rivers would ever be mentioned together in the same sentence?

-So Johnny Carson get his own tribute but not Marlon Brando? Makes sense I guess since Johnny was a TV host and Marlon Brando was merely the greatest actor of all time and revolutionized movie acting while winning two Academy Awards in the process...

-As someone (I can’t remember who) commented on, affirmative action is now officially out of hand. When you’re inviting people to the Oscars who have nothing to do with movies simply because they are black that’s when its out of hand. It’s almost patronizing to get Usher and P. Diddy to come just because they needed some black people in the audience and because they wanted to seem hip. The black people were coming out of the woodwork though. Even Prince and Oprah were there who I think both still technically qualify as black.

-Speaking of psuedo-black people remember when we all had to pretend like Halle Berry was a legitimate actress? I’m glad that’s over.

-Morgan Freeman waited 20 years to give THAT speech?

-I think all awards shows should be required to have an appearance by Robin Williams. Really all things in life should be. Think how much more fun a colonoscopy would be with Robin Williams there.


RANDOM QUOTES
- Carlyn: “Is Beyonce hiding refugees in her thighs?”

-Al Pacino about Sidney Lument: “Sidney told me where to go and what to do.”
Me: “Wow sounds like he must have been an amazing director”

-Carlyn after Hilary won Best Actress: “This is why people go to terrorist training camps”

-Me regarding Pierce Brosnan being sick while presenting: “Well if he dies on the spot at least Clive Owen is already in the building”

-Will during the Star Jones preshow: “Are we watching B.E.T.?”
-Will during the actual Oscar telecast: “Are we watching B.E.T.?”

BEYONCE
Sometimes there is just too much to say…
As if it weren’t bad enough that three of songs were all sung by the same person, that person had to be Beyonce! Seriously out of every single person in the entire world I cant think of anyone I would less like to have sing ONE song, let alone THREE. This is the same person who once sang the immortal lyric to end all immortal lyrics: “Charlie how your angels get down like that”. And it took like 8 people to write that song! Is there a more worthless person who is yet taken seriously? Today someone asked me “why did Beyonce sing three songs?” to which my reply, as you might imagine, was “why does she even exist?” And I think that about sums it up. Beyonce’s existence as a human being is suspect, so WHY IS SHE SINGING THREE SONGS AT THE OSCARS?!? Is she the only singer in the greater Los Angeles area?!? Before even asking why Beyonce sang three songs I think a bigger issue is why any one person sang three of the songs themselves. Especially if they were involved with NONE of them?!? I remember back in the day (meaning like two years ago) when the people who sang the song in the movie performed the song at the Oscars. Call me crazy, but this seems like this makes the most sense. I mean why not let the nominees do it themselves? If you liked them well enough to nominate them, shouldn’t you like them well enough to let them sing in public. I really don’t understand. It would be like nominating Green Day for a Grammy and then having Elton John perform for them on the Grammys. It makes no sense! And as for Beyonce, it’s not even like any of the songs were hip-hop related or even close to it. The Josh Grobon duet is the only one that makes even a modicum of sense for her to be within 100 yards of. I mean, her first song was in French! Yes that’s right, it was written for and performed in the movie by a French boys choir! Is Beyonce a young boy? No. More importantly, does Beyonce speak French? No. Of course not. She had to sing it phonetically. WHAT?!? Are there no French people in the entire world who can sing?!? Isn’t there any singer who at least knows French and therefore knows what the words mean that they are singing? Isn’t Johnny Depp dating a famous and hugely successful French language pop singer who happened to be sitting on like the third row? Someone please fucking explain this to me! WHY BEYONCE?!? Even worse, was having her sing the song from Phantom of the Opera. What could be worse than her singing a song written in another language for a young boy you ask? Well for starters, her singing a song that had to be rewritten specifically to fit her vocal range. Why are we rewriting songs specially for her? Is she fucking Pavarotti? Did I miss the memo? If we are going to hire someone to sing the song and we have EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE ENTIRE PLANET TO CHOSE FROM why are we choosing someone whose RANGE IT DOES NOT FIT?!? And even more important than that, the song was sung in the movie by Minnie Driver. Last time I checked, Minnie Driver was movie star. Minnie Driver in fact is a past Oscar nominee. And last time I checked this was also the Oscars, a show designed specifically to honor and celebrate movie stars. It seems like it would make perfect sense for Minnie Driver, a well known movie star, to sign her own song at the “movie star awards”. I mean wouldn’t that make PERFECT sense?!? Of course it would!!! So then explain to me why an UNTALENTED PUTRID MASS OF HUMAN EXCRIMENT SANG IT FOR HER?!?!? Please someone just kill Beyonce for me. I don’t even care if the government and/or Jay-Z can read this right now, someone just please kill her for me and put us all out of our misery. Thank you.
That is all for now.